Multiplayer on 7 Days to Die

[JasonPratt]

My mission last night, mostly successful, was to recover my minibike from the hub city, and then to get some repair kits and gas from Budd (for which I brought him some other loot, and did some digging on his new tunnel to the nearest water source). This plan was broken, several times in fact, only by a bug in the system which empties the mini's shopping basket if I ever log out and respawn. Which I necessarily have to do when the game desynchs me. Which happened several times last night. And which tends to happen more often when I or other people are running around a lot. Which the minibike NECESSARILY DOES AT SPEEDS SO HIGH THE GAME WAS WARPING!  I mean the game was stuttering where it would teleport me back in time a second or two while I was on the bike. It's a freaking miracle I didn't always desynch. But I learned, to my annoyance (having lost well over a hundred bricks and some other things), never ever ever to put anything in the basket, which between that and the exacerbation of the desynch reduces the bike's current utility for me a lot. Maybe in an emergency.

Plus Rekim says he already looted the hub city. Argh?

Having zipped around the map somewhat more, recently, I'm increasingly surprised how few water sources I'm finding for a map that doesn't have much desert. I did find a huge pond (not quite a lake) in the hub city, but I'd have to build some stairs and/or other things to reach it as it has sharp cliffs all around it. Not tall, maybe three blocks, but unclimbable.

Oh, and I helped OJ by FedExing him some things to help him survive this late in the game at AzTank's first house. OJ, Budd sent you a schematic on making crossbows, which I dropped off. Just read it and you can make your own, although you may also have to read something else to forge iron bars at the forge; not sure. Crossbows definitely need a forged iron bar, including to repair it (although the other materials are so easy to come by it's usually better to make a new one at better quality, if you have a game-minute or two.)

[OJsDad]

Thanks JP.  I found it.

Since I'm still feeling my way around, I'll probably stay around AT's house.  Since I'm there, what do you guys need.  I can get the corn and make both food and fuel.  And I can get the materials to make crossbow bolts.

[JasonPratt]

To make gasoline requires three things; well four things. (Well, five or six things since there are books involved...)

1.) Corn. Budd has a crop of that coming in, but AzTank's crop is larger. Harvesting it and carrying it to Budd will be useful. Grinding it to cornmeal first will save a step. Be sure to snip only the top half or block of the stalk! -- that way it'll regrow. I'm not sure other plants regrow if picked.

2.) Bottled water. Water isn't something easy to get at AzT's house, but budd can get it pretty easily (and more easily soon when the new tunnel is finished. Helping him dig the tunnel would be good, OJ, and you'd be safe underground while doing so.) But bottled water also requires bottles, and one of the most super-annoying and pointless things about the game engine is that if you use bottled water for anything other than drinkable items, you sacrifice the bottle. Basically if you boil an egg, you need the cooking pot to pour the water in (which itself requires forged iron to make), after which you SMASH THE BOTTLE ON THE GROUND COMPLETELY DESTROYING IT FOREVER! Or if you boil corn on the cob in your pot. Or boil meat. Smash that bottle. The same goes for making grain alcohol, which is corn meal + bottled water on the fire. That doesn't destroy the bottle, it's still there holding the alcohol, but make gas with it and you shatter the bottle.

Consequently, gas requires a constant stream of expendable bottles, and those things are a little uncommon to find and are super important for making other things (such as, most importantly, drinkable water!)

So a hidden cost to making gas is:

3.) Sand. I'm not sure what else is necessary, but you need sand to make glass bottles. This side of the map is pretty thin on desert so far, including near AzTank's house, but Budd has a very handy sliver of desert not far south of his main base. So he can get as much sand as he wants almost at will.


The other main ingredient is biofuel, and that's made with a beaker on the fire and...

4.) Animal fat. This comes from one place (as well as occasionally off dead zombies), namely dead animals. Budd has a lot of canned food, but that supply runs out eventually so he needs fresh meat; and fresh meat happens to come with animal fat as a bonus.

So if you go out hunting, OJ, and bring Budd some of your meat, and all your animal fat, and the top half of AT's corn (he's far south on the map now and doesn't come back this house much, so he rarely needs any), maybe already ground to corn meal, that'll be hugely helpful. :)

As for crossbows, I can make regular bolts whenever I want, but prefer to make iron bolts, which require iron arrowheads, which I can make but which requires scrap iron. Which comes mostly from digging on dark rocks (and to a much lesser extent, mining normal rocks). Budd and I can both use as much scrap iron as you can find or mine. The tunnel behind AzTank's house is a great place to hide, and features lots of rock (but not much iron rock) which incidentally makes it a pain to try to expand.

Budd can also use all the lead you find (already scrapped or not), which isn't easy to locate. I've run across some veins while tunneling but those aren't large, and I don't know what they look like above ground. He can also use any bullet casing (I don't know if he has found a schematic to make those yet; I think they're made of brass, and that's terribly difficult to find), and just as importantly any potassium nitrate and coal you can dig. Those last two show up on the map itself as you scout, as black and white marks. Put together they make gunpowder.

[OJsDad]

JP, sounds good to me.  Couple of thoughts/questions;

1.  Would it make more sense for me to relocate to Buds base.

2.  The whole out back of AT's base, does that have any real purpose except staying safe.

3.  If I'm staying at AT's base, then would it make sense to put up an outer wall to bring the corn fields inside of it.

4.  If I stay at AT's base, I may look at building a new storage box, probably in the basement.  Keep any raw materials or spare parts down there and any items ready to be used upstairs.  Help keep everything organized.   

[JasonPratt]

1.) Except for purposes of harvesting corn, quite possibly yes. His base is a lot more secure (as long as you can get down the hatch and close it before the zombie dogs rush you.)

2.) Not yet, although I've dug some good mineral resources out of the ground there. Don't knock "staying safe", though. That's arguably priority number one! If I ever got deeper and/or farther away from the door, I would have put a new firepit and (eventually) a forge there.

3.) No, the zs don't care about the crops, they aren't in danger. And unless you go out to harvest crops in the middle of the night (in which case you deserve everything that happens to you consequently  :P ), you're in more danger from those spike fields while trying to get to the crops.

Of course, in theory you could build a very large wall around the perimeter, put a spike field inside it (to protect players traveling nearby and to punish z's getting over or through the wall) on the far side of the crops, and then eliminate more of the nearby spike field to provide a safe path to the crops. But that would take an insane amount of effort. A better plan would be to build a strong path over the spike field (from the roof maybe) to to the crops, add railings to it for better human safety, but leave, say, a five block gap over the spike field. Any zs getting on it to go over the spike field will not be able to jump the gap; while human players can keep some simple wood frames in the backpack and drop them down, then turn around and pick them back up, to cross. (I was working on something like this over the western spike field, but made a mistake and lost the bridge; by the time I got things back to where they originally were, I needed to move along and do something else.)

4.) I recommend putting the new storage box nearby instead, so it's near at hand. Time management in this game can be important. In fact, you have a two pretty empty storage boxes near that one (near the firepit) already: a cabinet and a desk drawer! No need to build anything, just use them. I can reach the red cabinet from the firepit, I think, and the desk drawer is only a couple of steps away. (AzTank's chests up in his overlook are locked; I don't know if that's on purpose, though probably not: it's easy for players intending to share chests to forget they start off locked. Also we suspect the game sometimes locks chests again. In Budd's house, where you camped that first night, there were a set of four chests near the fridge which only I could reliably get into even though I hadn't built them, because they tended to spontaneously lock, even for Budd who built them! I suspect that problem is related directly to the occasional desynch. Remember, in passing, run as little as possible, so the server code has time to keep up.)

4.)

[OJsDad]

OK, I'll be logging on tonight.  When I do, I'll grab all of the corn, animal fat, and seeds that I can and head for Buds place. 

[OJsDad]

Made it back to Budds.  Killed a few Z's on the way.  I also killed a pig and a deer, but thanks to the Z's I couldn't find them afterwards.

I was only able to get into one of the locked chests.  I also placed a number of items into the refrigerator.  Then O kicked me off of the computer so she could play Sims for a little bit.

Oh, and I almost drowned in the basement!

[OJsDad]

There's at least one Walker in Budd's house. 

It's night, and I was up in the back bedroom.  I stayed logged in and walked away for a few minutes.  When I came back, I was all but dead.  When I respawned, I was outside.  I started walking back to the house and fell in deep hole.  I logged out.   

[-budd-]

you must be in my old house OJ with the water in the basement. I moved out awhile ago, take it over if you want. It has the benefit of an on site water supply.If you look on the map my base is the pharmacy now, well under it actually. The chests have been weird, there were times i couldn't get into them, i also cant get in the front door. Like i said if you want to take the place over, help yourself. I've gone back to work so i wont be on as much.

[Rekim]

Plus Rekim says he already looted the hub city. Argh?

I've put a dent in hub city, but haven't finished looting it by a long shot. I made a comment to Sgt Steiner that I'd cleaned up the town where my sleeping bag is located (his now too). Must be what you were thinking of Jason.

I won't have time to play before the weekend. I finally learned the recipe for cement and plan to strike off towards the northwest to start on a new base. Don't think anyone has been up that direction yet.

[ArizonaTank]

I have been in the south...frankly slim pickings so far.  So if you guys want to harvest the corn, go for it.

[JasonPratt]

Oh, gah, I totally forgot that no one had shown OJD where Budd is currently camping. It isn't at his first house (actually it's a lot closer to AzTank's house).

Of course on the shared map point, Budd's house is listed as "Budd's". So that's naturally where he tried to carry the supplies. I am so, so sorry. (And not surprising a z is in that house, the place was wrecked by several hordes in a row.)

I have to do a turn for my multiplayer game with Barth (and get the AAR written up on that) tonight, but whenever I get back on I'll try to give you a better map location, OJD. Meanwhile, if you have an opportunity, you can load up on water in Budd's basement -- it's so close to fresh that I don't recall ever getting dysentry from it, but I don't recommend taking that risk unnecessarily -- but trek back to AT's house.

If you want to find Budd's new digs before I get on, go north to the main road in front of AT's house (it isn't far in front, easy to see from the house, don't mistake it for the driveway of course), and follow it west. It'll loop north and then south again around some woods, which you could otherwise cut through directly if you already know where to go, but take the road the first time. Not much more than 1.5 km (I guess) you'll come to the corner of a town, with an extensive little farm growing outside it like at AT's house (but bigger). The Pharmacy will be on the corner, and that's the main base. You can only get in from underground, or by Mario jumping over from the roof of the garage next door where the minibikes are parked. (If you see a backback on the spikes there, you're free to take it if you want and if you can get to it -- that was mine, and should serve as a warning about trying to get in that way with a lack of 3D platforming skilz.  :P ) The first hatch is in a (rather inconvenient) hole in the back corner of the garage. I know where at least one more outside hatch is, but I don't know how to tell you where to find it. (In a room on the bottom floor of the house across the street from the garage, basically.) Unless Budd has made another one, you may only find one minibike in the garage. The garage is the first building on the left past the Pharmacy (also on the left) if you keep on going straight down the road you took to get to the town.

[OJsDad]

LOL. No problem JP.

No sure I'll get on tonight or not.  If I do, I'll at least make it back to AT's place.  I'll pack up as much as I can.

On those chests that won't open, if you break them open, will their contents be destroyed or can you get them then.  Just curious.

[-budd-]

OJ Just make another chest and maybe Jason can move stuff over, think he was the only one who could get into them last time this happened. My new base should be a shared waypoint on map, labeled the pharmacy. My plan is to get my tunnel to the next house on the way to my water source and take a break from tunneling and do some map exploring once I make enough gas. I'll keep going north like I have been. I do have that temp base in the town north of me where I have been doing some mining, there's a forge and camp fire and some supplies there. The entrance is a vault door in the back of a shotgun messiah store. I've explored a ways north of there, no new towns yet. I'll keep following the road.

[OJsDad]

I'm able to open the middle chest in the row of three next to the frig.  So he can use that one.